When I was a kid growing up in the 60s and 70s, I lived for the Vac-u-Form, the Thingmaker, and Creepy Crawlers.
This video looks at the long, circuitous history of Creepy Crawlers, from its roots as a Vac-u-Form accessory to several generations of dedicated Thingmakers to the Bug Maker injection molding toy to the ill-fated 3D-printing Thingmaker 3. It also looks at the animated Creepy Crawlers series (who knew?) and related toy line.
One of the things I really liked about this video was identifying the through-line from these early toys to today's desktop fabrication technologies. I have always wondered if it wasn't these molding, casting, and thermoforming "toys" that made me into a proto-maker.
The six-generation history of Creepy Crawlers and the Thingmaker
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